Sky to debut Hannibal and other TV shows on demand, as catch-up popularity grows

Sky has released its third-quarter financial results and revealed that its catch-up services have grown dramatically in popularity.

The company says 45,000 of its customers connected their set-to-boxes to home broadband services every week in the first three months of 2013.

It is a good time then to launch new on-demand initiatives, so Sky has also announced that the first episodes of several of its new and returning series will appear on its on-demand service before they air on TV.

One of those, Hannibal, starring ex-Bond villian Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lector in his early years, is now available online and through connected Sky set-top boxes. It screens on Sky Living on 7 May for the first time, but you can see the first episode beforehand.

Also debuting on Sky on demand will be the first episodes of new series of Trollied, Mad Dogs and The Borgias.

Game of Thrones has also been a success for Sky's on-demand service. Access to all episodes of the first two series are offered at no extra fee for subscribers, and Sky has received 1.4 million requests for them since the third season aired just over a month ago.

Sky has also revealed that it now has 14.613 million total customers and 4.669 million subscriptions for its Sky+HD service.